TEDGlobal

Been following TEDGlobal today through Tweets on Twitter, there's couple of interesting things that came up one was the talk by Arthur Potts Dawson from the Acorn House- his general talk about sustainable restaurants was interesting but what grabbed my attention was the food format for any forthcoming events. What was useful (as well as seeing the layout for last night at Bettakultcha) was starting to think about how to create something interesting over the two nights- which is going to require some kind of interaction (making, baking, doing) and possibly short talks that relate to the event.

The Bettakultcha layout was interesting as the layout and atmosphere before the presentations was pretty close to a restaurant. Food from Salsa Mexican, drink, about 50-60 people in the room , 7-8 tables, 3-4 sofas but the question me and Ste are trying to answer is that enough? And it isn't enough- it requires something unique as Ste said maybe it requires the cooking the food in the centre of the space or the painters bar is a much smaller space so it takes on a dinner party/ supper club feel. It also requires a theme (Ecosystems of the Wet and Slimy is still a great title) maybe it is a talk about the science of food including chefs, scientists and amateurs. There was a good presentation at Bettakultcha about cake, what was mentioned at the start was the significance of cake (and bread in history)

City quote

Reading one of the articles from RE:Cedric Price I came across this quote by Robert Vaughan from 1843, which is just as relevant now
"If any nation is too be lost or saved by the character of it's great cities, our own is that nation"

Bigger themes

I want this blog to be a way of just getting wider ideas of city, identity, regeneration, independence down and into words for myself. Working through aims for TestSpace, as well as documenting making, designing or running events.

So I started to re-read some Cedric Price interviews, looking at old concepts, visuals, reading up on the "Fun Palace" Its the notion of freedom I like, the work isn't the finished building as they weren't built but the concept, the idea. And it's something I'm coming back to- one of the things I've learnt as a designer is if you limit yourself at the start you're fucked, more fucked than when realise you don't have the time, money or skills. Of course coding skills, PHP knowledge, building details, health and safety, budget etc are crucial but the first step of a brief should be freedom to really just push ideas. Being aware of the limitations but running with an idea for a while- introduce the practical elements as you go but work with the two. And it's been good fun to do that again, and start to consider spaces again, playing with what you can do.

Test Space Sandpit Event Part Three

Ideas and email conversations continued


Back to food how about this from New York, mixing animals, science, food, architecture and art.
"molecular gastronomy, behavioral ecology, ecosystems science, space systems engineering, industrial ecology, performance art, and human micro biome resources to develop food experiences

Recruiting the adventurous for an extravagant, many-course dinner at 7pm (pre-dinner workshop at 3pm) themed around Lifestyles of the Wet and Slimey."

http://www.environmentalhealthclinic.net/ooz/projects/xspecies/
http://www.amphibiousarchitecture.net/xspecies/


Maybe the local food in Leeds is a decent greasy spoon, the kind the market has.
The Koffee Pott is a good example
http://www.thekoffeepot.co.uk/

Also Mr Scruff in Manchester used to run a really good pie and mash shop, alongside his own teas.
http://www.makeusabrew.com/showscreen.php?site_id=9&screentype=folder&screenid=212&categoryfilter=9

Heard about the Mr scruff one.
Theres plenty of Yorkshire Fare, tiffin, rascals hams etc...but cant find anything local to Leeds - maybe we should invent our own.
What about a grand finale of food fights/custard pies?
l once saw a dress made from toast in an old 60's photo but cant find the image.
Do excuse toing + froing of thoughts-am l making sense still.

Test Space Sandpit Event Part Two

Various ideas and email conversations between me and Debi from the past few days

lm liking it - check out the marmite art Banksy styly below.
l made a whole giant cafe scene as a commission a few years ago, mainly from jablite (type of poly used for insallating buildings). The table section was about 6ft tall with chair to match, cup, newspaper + giant custard creams/digestives - also massive cutlery coming throgh the ceiling - will dig photos out + send.
Made V. large burger + fries from same stuff along with all the wrappings - great fun to do. Will get thinking cap on (another one - head is full of 'stuff' already)


Have a read of this Christmas themed one in Shoreditch a few years ago http://www.metro.co.uk/metrolife/30113-the-reindeer-london

"A restaurant is about more than just the food, after all, and this was brilliant fun. The sort of Christmas party you wish you were invited to but rarely are.

And, from 10am on Christmas Eve, it's all being sold off in an Everything Must Go sale. So you could get your hands on one of the imposing Giles Deacon plates for £25 or one of the glorious antler chandeliers for £300."


I think we will be showing food related artwork- but needs to be large scale interactive in someway, so extreme cake icing, sweet pimping, food carving etc. It's important to think of it as a real restaurant, as opposed to an exhibition/event based on food related art. If that makes sense.
Think Heston Blumenthals Feast programme, where food has a theme, is over the top, can be interactive but you wouldn't think of the meal as an artwork.

l was thinking 'toast mosaic', with bread toasted to varying degrees (interactive/art/food).Just been on that Weburbanist site again-its brill-+ found this (replace stick it notes with toast).
Other thought - salt dough modelling (needs no cooking)-thinking of a collaboration as the ingredients in a recipe-potato printing wall mural(big)-creating a TestSpace food brand (designers,graffics,artists,musicians for jingles,film an ad) + fill shelves with objects made(like supermarket)-heads full of it + couldnt sleep last night.

I like the supermarket idea- I think there's ways of using that, but involving graphic designers, interior designers, illustrators etc

Just on that card idea have you seen this, cardboard bookshop
http://www.dezeen.com/2010/07/01/foldaway-bookshop-designed-by-campaign/

TestSpace Sandpit Event One

Same old, same old. It's always like this- given a brief read it, a few days trying to ignore it, thinking about it, a meeting, a crit, thinking about it some more. Then something clicks, usually when I'm pancaking about lack of ideas. This has been the same for the last ten years. But design is design, a brief is a brief and it requires a bit of work but something usually comes together.

Anyway the struggle with this initial event is 'the theme' so we start with the basic food theme. First problem straight off is still thinking in terms of a gallery, this isn't what we do. We're multi-disciplinary in terms of what we show, I'm a designer- more precisely for this an interior designer. Images paintings on the wall food related is going to be shit and not what we do. Second problem- is thinking we have to be 'interactive' and defining what that means. Third problem- we don't make the work, how do we make interactive stuff. The problem is that still considering this as a basic gallery/gig/BBQ is also wrong: the flaw here is I'm not an events manager. It'll just end up a gig with some food, just as Crash could have been gigs with artwork. So what do I do, well I'm an interior designer. If someone came to me and said we have X space we want to fit a bar/cafe/gig space in here, then I can work from that.

And this is where it starts to click- the theme is food, but that shouldn't mean food in it's basic/obvious sense sense. Now it really starts to click so if I was Anthony Bourdain, Piere White running a kitchen in there what would it be like? But the problem with this approach is it easily becomes a wanky conceptual piece. Been there, done that, don't like it. So lets start treating like a real space again- we had a stage PA system at Crash so brought bands in, we had stock and installed shelf's and sold work at 42, treating it like a shop. Playing with this idea, getting people through the doors. So lets start to think of this as our cafe/bar Test. And this is where it starts to make sense.

Consider it like this- we are Testing our cafe/bar for two days. 42 was testing our shop/gallery element. Themes should just be us testing our ICA project, the next one should be installing a cinema space. So for this you still have food stuff but in it's broadest possible sense.

The approach needs to be thinking of it as a two day cafe/bar and testing ideas from there. So just as before when we involved artists, designers, bands etc why not get young chefs, restaurants/ cafes involved- this was discussed before for 42/Crash getting breweries involved, chip shops. This can be along side designed menus, screen printed tea towels, illustrated paper plates, doodled paper cups, extreme cake icing with graffiti groups etc. So if 42 was about testing out a shop/gallery this is about testing a cafe/bar/restaurant environment. So all the elements are in place for a real cafe/bar, just as 42 should have been a shop, as well as a gallery.

Food is just the hook- anything should relate back to that. But that doesn't have to be literately food, it can be all the elements involved in a cafe, like menus, tablecloths, cups etc

But this isn't a final solution but it's getting clearer. Going back to original concepts ideas, avoiding wacky themes. Tomorrow is a bit of research, printing off, pulling concepts together and start to design this thing.

Testing Space

As I used to do here's a few ideas about ways of moving forward. After a lot of thought what needs doing with Test Space is scaling down- or more maybe more freedom, a way of experimenting, playing testing ideas in some way. This notion of large concepts- multi platform events, themed programmes, lots of things happen is right. But it's this concept of build up that is wrong.

I've started to look at this Sandpit concept that Hide and Seek use

This is good- one event a month.

The Sandpit
Sandpit lives in London and tours the country with games designed, tested and enjoyed by its amazing community of makers.

Created in Feburary 2008. the Sandpit is a monthly pervasive gaming night in London. For designers and game-makers, it’s a curated space to test out new ideas; for players, it’s a regular evening of interesting playful work. It takes place a different location each month, from art galleries to theatres to underground nightclubs.

The key things are monthly curated space to test out new ideas It takes place a different location each month, from art galleries to theatres to underground nightclubs.

Now I can see something coming together, the other thing I started to look at was TEDx. I looked at TED mainly as I want to break out of the gallery format, what was most interesting for me during the first Test Space showcases were the talks combined with events(Click 'n Sup) or music or DJing. This is where I could see some real themes and concepts emerging- they were rough but you could see similar discussions and ideas about independence, freedom and working for yourself coming through. Being able to really break way from that 'artistic' creativity into a broader sense of creativity, TED describe it like this

TED is a small nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design.

TEDx is

TEDx was created in the spirit of TED's mission, "ideas worth spreading." The program is designed to give communities, organizations and individuals the opportunity to stimulate dialogue through TED-like experiences at the local level.

At TEDx events, unique talks given by live speakers combine with TEDTalks videos to spark deep conversation and connections. TEDx events are fully planned and coordinated independently, on a community-by-community basis.

but what really grabbed me was this from there venue description:

# Home: A small gathering for a group of friends at a house, library or other intimate location (3-30 people, 2-3 hours)

It's this idea of size of space, type of space, really pushing that 'a friends house' '3 people' scaling it down but retaining the original themes and concepts. It reminded me of 2 Leeds Beechwood Avenue

This was the opening event for 2 Beechwood Avenue, a new gallery space situated in a newly converted basement. I was excited. I always feel priviledged to be going to such intimate affairs as this.

But I can start to see a way forward.

David Byrne: How architecture helped music evolve

David Byrne: How architecture helped music evolve

Aim for success, don't plan for failure and buy a fish tank

A think tank (fish tank?) for various ludicrous ideas and theories relating to communities, festivals, identity, culture, cities, spaces, music, art design and doing things a bit differently. Most of these I will aim to achieve.